Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

The Good
It’s safe to say that Metal Gear Solid 2 was one of the most anticipated games of all time. MGS1 was a runaway hit, and fans were clamoring for its next-gen followup after seeing what Konami was able to produce on the weak PlayStation. The game was a heavy motivator for early PS2 sales. The game was so hotly anticipated, that well over half a year before the game’s release, a demo of MGS2 was bundled along with another Konami game, Zone of the Enders.

MGS2 begins a few years after the original. Solid Snake is sent by Otacaon to infiltrate a tanker leaving New York which may contain a new version of Metal Gear. When that turns out to be the case, the tanker ends up being destroyed with Snake apparently dying in the wreckage. Two years later, a offshore cleanup plant, codenamed the Big Shell, is constructed over the remains of the tanker, and the player is sent in to (of course) infiltrate the facility and stop a terrorist group called Dead Cell. But this mission is not Solid Snake's.

Instead, players got to step into the sneaking suit of a new character, Raiden. Raiden is on his first “real” mission after extensive training using VR , a clear nod to the VR Missions released for the first game. Raiden is almost the exact opposite of Solid Snake. He’s young and (seemingly) inexperienced, but that’s what makes him interesting.In some ways. As cool as Solid Snake was, he was basically an amalgamation of every Hollywood action hero and military soldier. Raiden, in contrast, is genuiniely tense and scared, and desperate to complete the mission so he can see his girlfriend again. and is a much more believable character.

Metal Gear Solid 2 makes many great additions to the gameplay of the original, fleshing it out considerably and making the game that much more fun to play. The player can now hang from railings. This allows the player to drop out of sight if a guard is coming close to them, or they can use this to quickly drop down to lower areas. A dodge move has been added, by pressing the crouch button while moving, the player can jump over gaps and loud floor tiles. New to the series is a tranquilizer gun, which puts enemies to sleep. Using this weapon allows you to play the game with potentially zero kills. Perhaps the biggest addition is a first-person mode, which allows you to shoot your gun and throw objects with pinpoint accuracy. You are going to need this, as head (or groin) shots will instantly incapacitate guards.

To compensate for all of these player advantages, the game’s AI has been smartened up significantly and there are new systems in play. Killing or knocking out a guard does not make their body disappear: you must hide the body, preferably in a locker, so that other guards may not see it. If a guard has not been heard from for a while, additional guards will be sent into the area to investigate. Even when spotted, guards will radio in for reinforcements, which swarm the room and make it darn near impossible to escape. Guards can even spot footprints or trails of your blood left over from an attack, and investigate.

With all of this in place, Metal Gear Solid 2 is a VERY difficult game, far more so than the original. Stealth is king here - levels are much more cramped, so you’ll have to look around corners often and use your weapons to make sure everything is safe. Although the guards still possess the small FOV as seen in the original MGS, the tighter corridors help to mitigate this a lot. In addition guards can also hear and spot you from different vertical heights, making them that much more ruthless. Even crossing the line of sight just out of their field of view is enough to make them suspicious this time around.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is also bigger and longer than the first game. The Tanker alone is almost 75 percent as big as the original Metal Gear Solid, and the Big Shell is 2-3 times its size, despite the fact that you don’t get to visit absolutely every strut. There is a LOT more stealth in this game, with boss fights and setpieces cut back somewhat from the original, (though not entirely). This Makes MGS2 feel like a more substantial game than its predecessor. Konami did the unthinkable with MGS2. They increased both the quantity and the quality of the gameplay.

On top of all of this, Metal Gear Solid 2’s game world and graphics are some of the most convincing I have ever seen. Yes, even in 2015, the game still holds up. Every room is meticulously crafted down to the finest detail, and many things are interactive : shoot a pipe and a burst of steam will explode out of it, shoot a bottle and it explodes, wet shoes leave footprints on the floor. These elements are not just for show: you can use the steam from the pipes to damage enemies, and the footprints can be followed by guards. water makes droplets and streams on the camera. and enemies have realistic rag doll physics, It is kind of amazing how in the push for bigger and bigger game worlds, game developers focused less on the details and more on creating the biggest world possible. But it goes to show that a smaller, more detailed world, can feel more real and immersive than even the largest and most expansive of open ones. As amazing as the upcoming open-world Metal Gear Solid 5 looks, it’s going to have to work very hard to match the quality of MGS2’s world. In some ways, the realistic nature of the game world makes the plot’s themes stand out in much sharper contrast.

Much was made of the fact that Hollywood composer Harry Gregson-Williams, a protege of the legendary Hans Zimmer, would score MGS2. In general the score of MGS2 is more cinema-like in nature as opposed to the gamey score of MGS1: recognizable motifs, such as jazzy saxophone trills, breakbeat electronica, and numerous variations of the MGS theme are used throughout. In general MGS2’s score is not quite as good as MGS1’s, but it’s certainly up there, and the various arrangements of the MGS theme are very memorable.

The Bad
The biggest issue with MGS2 is that parts of it, feel recycled from the original Metal Gear Solid. There’s a section where you have to use a guided missile to hit a circuit breaker which will allow you to pass through a hazardous area. There’s an extended sniping section. A battle with a harrier is nearly the same thing as the battle with the helicopter in the first game. Certain boss battles utilize identical area designs to boss battles in the original. You’ll use Stinger Missiles to battle a Metal Gear once again. You might say that this is laziness, and you’d probably be right. Yet amazingly, but perhaps aggravatingly, the game actually tries to use its narrative to justify all of the reused elements.

The game also has a considerably stranger storyline than the original. Okay, we had a psychic soldier, a cyborg ninja, and clones in the original, but that is nothing compared to what is in MGS2. One of the terrorists is a vampire. A replacement arm for a character from MGS1 who lost his arm is able to somehow possess the person it has been grafted onto. In addition, you also have to also play a section of the game with Raiden completely naked, and yes, you do get to see his bare butt. Thanks a lot Konami, we really needed that (not). And I’m don't even want to mention some of the disgusting stuff with Otacon. Just ugh.

As in the first game, conversations are long and frequent. You can’t take a few steps without someone contacting Raiden on his codec, and more calls must be taken by him than in the original. The final moments of the game in particular are an overstuffed, undercooked mess. There are plot revelations and surprise reveals every minute, and awkward philosophizing about censorship and control that just makes your head hurt trying to process it all. Although Metal Gear Solid 2’s plot is more thematically ambitious and risk-taking than the original, it isn’t quite as satisfying, even though it kept me glued to my controller for long stretches of time. There are so may double crosses and deceptions it is impossible for even the most astute players to keep track of them (on their first time) all and you’re never quite sure what is fact and what is fiction. On top of that you have a challenging stealth action game to get through as well. Even the game itself is a deception: all of the marketing and opening hours made players think that they were going to be playing as Solid Snake, only to have the rug pulled under them hours in when they discovered that Raiden would be taking the lead. As maddening as that is, it’s actually quite brilliant.

The Bottom Line
With all that said, I felt that Metal Gear Solid 2 was an incredible improvement over its predecessor, and I’m really starting to see why so many people love this series. Playing MGS2 was one of the finest gaming experiences I have had in a long time, and I simply could not put it down. Even when I forced myself to stop playing, I always wanted to go back and keep going. And when I’m playing that game nearly 14 years after its original release, it definitely did something right. It's a game that puts many modern AAA epics to shame even though it is also an overstuffed mess with too much to say and too many ways it tries to say it. I can’t say I’ve really played anything like it.